The Case for Theism

[Drew_2013]

Such a universe wasn't caused intentionally, wasn't planned and didn't intend humans or life to exist right? Explain to me how apart from mind and intent anything can occur that isn't by happenstance?

If a universe was eternal, then it could not have happened by purely random chance, as there would be no point at which it did not exist.

So the best you can do is offer a hypothetical which you don't actually think is true.

No, because the multiple worlds hypothesis dictates that every event causes divergences, even completely unconscious ones like, for example, earthquakes. In this case it is, in fact, more likely that our universe was created as the result of a divergence from a natural event in some other one, that is nevertheless something completely predictable and non-random, given powerful enough predictive tools.

Thats your story and your stuck with it. Of course you don't really believe this BS either right?

This is why we say your design-or-chance claim is a false dichotomy; you're claiming those are the only two choices, but there are many, many more even within the realm of established theoretical science that conform to neither of those definitions. You're setting up two choices and hoping that everyone else doesn't realize there are more, and now that you've very clearly had two of those additional possibilities explained to you, will you admit that you were mistaken?

No I'm not going to say I am mistaken because you offer two hypothetical scenarios which I doubt even you believe actually exist. In the long run though it doesn't matter what I think or what you think it's what the reasonable impartial person who weighs our respective arguments thinks that matters. And even though you declare the dichotomy false, I doubt any reasonable person would. In peoples every day life experiences they note that something happens unguided and unplanned in which we say it was happenstance or by chance that it occurred, other wise something happens intentionally because someone planned it or designed it to occur in a particular fashion. And why do you go to such rediculous extremes to deny what is common sense? Because you don't want to defend the consequences of your own belief, that we owe our existence either to intentional planning and design which you reject or to happenstance and serendipity which amazingly you also seem to reject but in fact I don't think you do reject that either. You just want to obfuscate and cloud the issue because that's what atheists do in defense of atheism.

The existence of the universe and life are red flags that lead folks to question the narrative that we owe our existence to mindless forces that didn't plan, design or intend either the universe or life, yet inspite of neither the desire, the intent or the plan to create life, without knowledge of how to do it mindless forces stumbled blindly upon the formula to create life and cause a universe that allows life.

Whoa whoa, let's take a step back. Why is it a red flag? The mere existence of a thing is not evidence one way or another, after all, we see things in nature that are very random indeed yet to all observers seem designed. There are rock formations that look like all kinds of things, and yet were sculpted by erosion, very much an unguided process; saying something looks designed only gets you to the fact that it looks designed, not that it is.

Again this is only the first two lines of evidence at this point, not the entire case. But for us to even have this discussion about whether we owe our existence to a Creator who intended us to exist or to mindless forces and happenstance (even though you reject the notion those are the only two choices) both a universe and life have to exist. The fact the universe by itself exists raises the question (that wouldn't be asked if it didn't exist) how did it get here? Did someone cause it to exist? Did it poof into existence uncaused out of nothing? Did it always exist? Was it caused by some other event that leads back to an endless recession of events? If it didn't exist we'd ask none of those questions. But now we have another piece of the puzzle, not only does the universe exist but it also allows life to exist. It may have even caused life to exist. The existence of both the universe and life raise the same questions again only now whatever the answer is it has to account for both phenomena. Was it as you suggest and unguided process like we observe in rock formations or was it intentionally caused to exist by a Creator? But if neither the universe or life existed the questions wouldn't be raised.

Beyond that, you're looking at it backwards. In accordance with evolutionary theory, life develops in accordance with its environment, not the other way around. It's not that the universe allows life, but that life fills the niches that are present in the universe.

We know that isn't true. Life adopted to the conditions on earth in a universe that has a plethora of other conditions that would allow the only type of life we know of to exist.

I shouldn't have to point this out, but you've also never observed a god creating a universe or life, so this isn't really a point in favor of either one of us. Unless you can provide detailed information as to your own theory, don't start using current ignorance of ours as evidence of its weakness; we can throw that right back.

No but I have observed life coming from life. I haven't observed life coming from inert material. People can weigh for themselves the merit of our respective arguments. I know you think its up to you if my arguments and evidence carry weight but...it isn't.

So long as you recognize that we have rebuttals. Your evidence is hardly incontrovertible.

That's why theism is an opinion...as is atheism.

Stop conflating the layman's definition of a theory with the scientific one. In science, a theory is a framework that explains facts, and is in itself completely factual. A scientific theory is the graduation point of an idea, the highest status that one can achieve.

Its an attempt to create a scenario that explains observations and allows testing of the scenario to see if it fact passes scientific muster. A confirmed theory through testing when it graduates to scientific fact is the highest status a theory can achieve.

[i win you lose.com]

So genkaus, is this how you always answer your opponents questions that you cant answer? You just use semantics to beat around the bush hoping your opponent won't notice how far off topic they are... I have to admit it's pretty smart until it comes down to the reality that you just don't have an answer

[Mister Agenda]

Okay genkaus now that we can put away semantics and get on with the argument how do you explain the probability of natural filtering verses Borels law of mathematical probability?

Genkaus?

Why do you suppose Genkaus is an authority on Borel's law of mathematical probability or that Genkaus has some obligation to do your calculations for you?

And are you talking about Borel's law of large numbers? I've never heard of Borel's law of mathematical probability.

Anyway, to address your earlier question, we don't know for sure how abiogenesis occurred, but a plausible pathway is self-replicating RNA (see RNA world). That may not be the explanation, and it certainly isn't a complete one, but no one in biology is proposing that step A was a fully-functioning cell that happened to self-assemble. Large molecules self-assemble all the time though, and all it would take to get the ball rolling is one self-replicating molecule in all the possible environments it could occur in with hundreds of millions of years of opportunities to do so.

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If a universe was eternal, then it could not have happened by purely random chance, as there would be no point at which it did not exist.

So the best you can do is offer a hypothetical which you don't actually think is true.

Just as a clarification, it wasn't the idea of an eternal universe that was rejected, it was the idea of life having existed eternally.

You just want to obfuscate and cloud the issue because that's what atheists do in defense of atheism.

Is that what you did in defense of atheism?

That's why theism is an opinion...as is atheism.

Correct!

[i win you lose.com]

Genkaus?

Why do you suppose Genkaus is an authority on Borel's law of mathematical probability or that Genkaus has some obligation to do your calculations for you?

And are you talking about Borel's law of large numbers? I've never heard of Borel's law of mathematical probability.

Anyway, to address your earlier question, we don't know for sure how abiogenesis occurred, but a plausible pathway is self-replicating RNA (see RNA world). That may not be the explanation, and it certainly isn't a complete one, but no one in biology is proposing that step A was a fully-functioning cell that happened to self-assemble. Large molecules self-assemble all the time though, and all it would take to get the ball rolling is one self-replicating molecule in all the possible environments it could occur in with hundreds of millions of years of opportunities to do so.

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So the best you can do is offer a hypothetical which you don't actually think is true.

Just as a clarification, it wasn't the idea of an eternal universe that was rejected, it was the idea of life having existed eternally.

You just want to obfuscate and cloud the issue because that's what atheists do in defense of atheism.

Is that what you did in defense of atheism?

That's why theism is an opinion...as is atheism.

Correct!

Because of Chemical Evolution's inconceivable claims, some mathematicians set to work on calculating the probability that Chemical Evolution could have actually happened at all. 

Experts tell us there are roughly 1080 particles (electrons and protons) in the entirety of our immense universe. That's 10 with 80 zeros behind it, or "one hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion." 

In other words, 1080 is a lot of particles. 

Imagine for a moment (as some experts have estimated) that each particle in the universe could perform 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1020) events per second. 

Also assume for a moment that the universe is more than 15 billion years old (about 1018 seconds)—also a generous approximation. 

*If these numbers are reasonable, this means that in our universe there could have been, to date, no more than roughly 10118 chemical events (1080 x 1020 x 1018 = 10118)—in other words, 10118 "possible" interactions among all the protons and electrons in the immeasurable history of our universe. *

I say "possible" because it's quite certain there were far "less" than that. Why? 

Because 1080 assumes every single proton and electron "in the universe" has interacted with every single "other" proton and electron. *Obviously, this is extremely overstated.* 

In fact, most areas of the universe are totally isolated from the others, separated by immense expanses of outer space. They will never interact with matter outside of their close proximity. Even on our earth, the vast majority of protons and electrons will never get close enough to interact with the vast majority of "other" protons and electrons on earth. 

What I'm trying to say is...10118 is the total possible chemical interactions IF every proton and electron interacted with every other proton and electron. Therefore it is obvious that 10118 far exceeds the actual number of chemical events that have in fact occurred in the universe to date. 

In view of this—and still being extremely generous—*mathematicians have concluded that it is ridiculous to think an event with odds of less than 1 in 1050 will ever happen*.

Why? Because chances are, there have been far LESS than 1050 chemical events in the combined history of our universe. 

It would therefore be impossible for a chance occurrence to happen that required MORE events than 1050. 

This conclusion is called "Borel's Law of mathematical probability.

[Mod: Quote taken from this site.]

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1080 = 10^80... 1018 = 10^18... 1050 = 10^50....etc...

[Mister Agenda]

If you roll a fair ten-sided die 118 times, the probability of rolling this particular sequence is 10−118. It takes a little longer to count than to do (provided you have 118 10-sided dice), but it's an example of how trivially easy it is to do something you just said is impossible. And Borel would be appalled at what you're using his calculation (not law, his law was Borel's law of large numbers) for. It's supposed to be used as a rule of thumb for whether something is going to happen before the fact, not claim that something that has already happened, didn't. Successfuly specifying what all those dice were in advance, 10-118 against you being right. After they've been rolled, whatever came up, actually came up.

[i win you lose.com]

So what your saying is that just because YOU havent heard of a law its not at play. and you do realise that ALL 118 ten sided dice would have to land on the same side in one roll.. i think you need to do a little bit more homework. And if your going to try to refute many mathematicians and biophysicists research and studies your going to need a little bit more than a ten sided die "argument"

[Jackalope]

Let's illustrate Mister Agenda's point in a slightly different way.

There are approximately 2 * 10 ^ 19 molecules in a grain of sand. Feel free to calculate the odds of each individual molecule being arranged exactly as it is - it's infinitesimally small. Yet, every one of the billions and billions of grains of sand on earth is arranged exactly as it is, despite those infinitesimal odds against such a specific arrangement. I'll add that despite those odds, the arrangement is wholly unremarkable, because nobody predicted it would occur.

Probability is useful for making predictions, not for analyzing events which have already occurred.

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Incidentally, if you're going to copy-paste your argument from the internet (a practice that is frowned upon), the least you can do is attribute your source.

http://www.religiouslyincorrect.com/Arti...ion5.shtml

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Because of Chemical Evolution's inconceivable claims, some mathematicians set to work on calculating the probability that Chemical Evolution could have actually happened at all. 

Experts tell us there are roughly 1080 particles (electrons and protons) in the entirety of our immense universe. That's 10 with 80 zeros behind it, or "one hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion." 

In other words, 1080 is a lot of particles. 

Imagine for a moment (as some experts have estimated) that each particle in the universe could perform 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1020) events per second. 

Also assume for a moment that the universe is more than 15 billion years old (about 1018 seconds)—also a generous approximation. 

*If these numbers are reasonable, this means that in our universe there could have been, to date, no more than roughly 10118 chemical events (1080 x 1020 x 1018 = 10118)—in other words, 10118 "possible" interactions among all the protons and electrons in the immeasurable history of our universe. *

I say "possible" because it's quite certain there were far "less" than that. Why? 

Because 1080 assumes every single proton and electron "in the universe" has interacted with every single "other" proton and electron. *Obviously, this is extremely overstated.* 

In fact, most areas of the universe are totally isolated from the others, separated by immense expanses of outer space. They will never interact with matter outside of their close proximity. Even on our earth, the vast majority of protons and electrons will never get close enough to interact with the vast majority of "other" protons and electrons on earth. 

What I'm trying to say is...10118 is the total possible chemical interactions IF every proton and electron interacted with every other proton and electron. Therefore it is obvious that 10118 far exceeds the actual number of chemical events that have in fact occurred in the universe to date. 

In view of this—and still being extremely generous—*mathematicians have concluded that it is ridiculous to think an event with odds of less than 1 in 1050 will ever happen*.

Why? Because chances are, there have been far LESS than 1050 chemical events in the combined history of our universe. 

It would therefore be impossible for a chance occurrence to happen that required MORE events than 1050. 

This conclusion is called "Borel's Law of mathematical probability." 

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1080 = 10^80... 1018 = 10^18... 1050 = 10^50....etc...

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Furthermore, let's go see what Borel himself had to say about (ab)using probabilities in this manner:

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The Problem of Life

In conclusion, I feel it is necessary to say a few words regarding a question that does not really come within the scope of this book, but that certain readers might nevertheless reproach me for having entirely neglected. I mean the problem of the appearance of life on our planet (and eventually on other planets in the universe) and the probability that this appearance may have been due to chance. If this problem seems to me to lie outside our subject, this is because the probability in question is too complex for us to be able to calculate its order of magnitude. It is on this point that I wish to make several explanatory comments.

When we calculated the probability of reproducing by mere chance a work of literature, in one or more volumes, we certainly observed that, if this work was printed, it must have emanated from a human brain. Now the complexity of that brain must therefore have been even richer than the particular work to which it gave birth. Is it not possible to infer that the probability that this brain may have been produced by the blind forces of chance is even slighter than the probability of the typewriting miracle?

It is obviously the same as if we asked ourselves whether we could know if it was possible actually to create a human being by combining at random a certain number of simple bodies. But this is not the way that the problem of the origin of life presents itself: it is generally held that living beings are the result of a slow process of evolution, beginning with elementary organisms, and that this process of evolution involves certain properties of living matter that prevent us from asserting that the process was accomplished in accordance with the laws of chance.

Moreover, certain of these properties of living matter also belong to inanimate matter, when it takes certain forms, such as that of crystals. It does not seem possible to apply the laws of probability calculus to the phenomenon of the formation of a crystal in a more or less supersaturated solution. At least, it would not be possible to treat this as a problem of probability without taking account of certain properties of matter, properties that facilitate the formation of crystals and that we are certainly obliged to verify. We ought, it seems to me, to consider it likely that the formation of elementary living organisms, and the evolution of those organisms, are also governed by elementary properties of matter that we do not understand perfectly but whose existence we ought nevertheless admit.

Similar observations could be made regarding possible attempts to apply the probability calculus to cosmogonical problems. In this field, too, it does not seem that the conclusions we have could really be of great assistance.

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I'll summarize what Borel said: probability estimates that don't account for non-random properties of matter (i.e. physics and chemistry) are meaningless.

[Tartarus Sauce]

So what your saying is that just because YOU havent heard of a law its not at play. and you do realise that ALL 118 ten sided dice would have to land on the same side in one roll.. i think you need to do a little bit more homework. And if your going to try to refute many mathematicians and biophysicists research and studies your going to need a little bit more than a ten sided die "argument"

No, that isn't what he's saying at all, and no, he isn't refuting any mathematics.

Saying that something that has happened couldn't have happened on its own due to the sheer improbability is illogical. You are conflating the concept of a specified result and a non-specified outcome, two completely different concepts as has already been pointed out to you. The specified outcomes' probability could be subject to variation depending on the conditions of the case being studied, but that a non-specified outcome will occur has a probability of 100%.

The chance for ANY configuration of the 118 ten sided die being rolled is equal, but we attribute significance to only certain outcomes. If they all come up on the same side, that is psychologically significant to us, but it actually had the same chances of occurring as any random assortment that we would consider insignificant. Since the number of outcomes we attribute significance to is an incredibly microscopic sliver of the bajillions of outcomes, chances are we will never see, in this instance of 118 ten sided die, an outcome we would consider a spooky coincidence.

[Angrboda]

This is why we say your design-or-chance claim is a false dichotomy; you're claiming those are the only two choices, but there are many, many more even within the realm of established theoretical science that conform to neither of those definitions. You're setting up two choices and hoping that everyone else doesn't realize there are more, and now that you've very clearly had two of those additional possibilities explained to you, will you admit that you were mistaken?

No I'm not going to say I am mistaken because you offer two hypothetical scenarios which I doubt even you believe actually exist. In the long run though it doesn't matter what I think or what you think it's what the reasonable impartial person who weighs our respective arguments thinks that matters. And even though you declare the dichotomy false, I doubt any reasonable person would. In peoples every day life experiences they note that something happens unguided and unplanned in which we say it was happenstance or by chance that it occurred, other wise something happens intentionally because someone planned it or designed it to occur in a particular fashion. And why do you go to such rediculous extremes to deny what is common sense? Because you don't want to defend the consequences of your own belief, that we owe our existence either to intentional planning and design which you reject or to happenstance and serendipity which amazingly you also seem to reject but in fact I don't think you do reject that either. You just want to obfuscate and cloud the issue because that's what atheists do in defense of atheism.

Whether or not anybody believes in these alternative explanations is completely irrelevant. Your argument (ostensibly) depends on demonstrating the implausibility of alternative explanations to the one for which you are arguing acceptance (that the universe was designed). As a simple matter of logic, if you exclude them for any other reason than their being unsound and untrue explanations of the facts, then you have constructed an argument that is logically invalid, and its conclusions are therefore of necessity a non sequitur. If you fail to demonstrate their implausibility or otherwise account for these hypotheses on substantive and material grounds, your conclusions are worthless.


And no, "Atheists are disingenuous meanies" is not a valid argument against these other possibilities.

[genkaus]

Okay genkaus now that we can put away semantics and get on with the argument how do you explain the probability of natural filtering verses Borels law of mathematical probability?

A) There is no way to determine the probability of "natural filtering" - by which I assume you mean the particular method by which life originated - because we don't happen to know how it did originate. Even if you did subscribe to a particular hypothesis - how do you calculate the probability of that occurring?

B) Borel would be revolving in his grave if he knew how his law was being misused by creationists. Its a general thumb rule - not an iron clad law of nature - which can be seen to be inapplicable even in everyday life.

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So genkaus, is this how you always answer your opponents questions that you cant answer? You just use semantics to beat around the bush hoping your opponent won't notice how far off topic they are... I have to admit it's pretty smart until it comes down to the reality that you just don't have an answer

Are you fucking kidding me? I'm not online 24/7 you know - I have a life.